Public safety (PS) personnel, such as police officers, firefighters, paramedics, emergency medical service technicians, disaster relief workers, military rescue personnel, and like first responders respond to emergencies or incidents that endanger people and/or property and utilize PS communication devices, both handheld and vehicle-portable, while working in the field. PS communication devices include, for example, land mobile radios (LMRs), such as handheld radios and/or vehicular radios, along with remote accessories, such as remote microphones, speakers, earpieces, headsets, and the like, as well as PS smartphones, to support wireless voice communications. These primary, mission-critical devices and the infrastructure to support their operation are typically operated via a private, secure, and protected PS network governed by a PS agency, e.g., a local government or department.
PS personnel, like many members of the public at large, often carry non-PS, personal communication devices, such as personal smartphones, tablets, personal digital assistants, electronic notepads, and the like, which typically operate over public carrier communications networks, and which communicate one or more of voice, data, photo, video, and like information, over wireless, broadband, high-speed connections. Often, these non-PS devices have technical specifications and capabilities that exceed those of the PS devices. For example, many non-PS devices may have built-in cameras capable of taking photos at a higher resolution and video at a higher definition than existing PS devices. As another example, many non-PS devices can operate at high-speed voice and data rates in accordance with the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard, but many existing PS devices operate at much slower voice and data speeds.
Despite their greater technical capabilities, non-PS devices are currently not authorized to be used for communication over the PS networks, essentially for reasons of security. Many times a first responder would desire to capture, upload and download information at an incident scene with his or her own non-PS device and distribute and share the captured information in real-time over the PS network with other first responders. In some emergency scenarios, a first responder may even want to use the personal, non-PS, device of a bystander to communicate important information to other PS personnel at the incident scene, or to the PS network. Yet, such non-PS devices are not permitted to be authenticated by the PS network and, therefore, are unavailable for use by the first responder.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved communication system that will alleviate the aforementioned problems and enable non-PS communication devices to be used over PS networks.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and locations of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The method and system components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.